Always remember, there's a distinction between Service Tech's with years of experience and retail store "Geniuses" who get two weeks training courtesy of apple. I like to think that my wealth of knowledge puts me in a position to better mod a mac, because I know my way around them blindfolded, whereas the end user doesnt take them apart all day, and probably hasnt read all of the apple internal diagnostic manuals.

As far as warranty goes, I prefer not to touch anything under warranty unless I order spare plastics for it. (like my ibook) I paint the spares and keep the originals, should it need to go to apple for an REA issue or similar. Out of warranty is a whole nother ball-game.

In regard to the eMacs, on many of them the dome plastics are molded in the opaque white color, and the front bezel plastic is clear, giving it the appearance of the early snow ibooks. When I modded an eMac for my shop, I went the easy way by sanding the outter surface of the removed plastics, priming them, painting them, and clear coating them. It comes out looking good, and its not as much of a pain as stripping the internal whiting can be.

Modding, its a personal preference. Not for everyone. But absolutely for me

One last thought, dust covers are all fine and good, but realize that the majority of the dust that gets into your computer is sucked in when the machine is running. The fans pull air in, as opposed to pushing it out. it gets amplified if you smoke lots around your computer (the marlboro effect) The most proactive thing you can do is to buy cans of compressed air, and blow the dust rhino's out. it takes about ten seconds and works like a charm. An old toothbrush can also clean fan blades and intakes as well. This will serve you better than any cover ever could. Trust me, I've cleaned stuff out of cases that was so thick, it caused the processors to burn out from lack of airflow. And of course the customer was shocked because she covered it up every night.

Hell yeah! Preaching to the Choir! I am one of those tech's that had years of experience and wasn't thrown through a boot camp via Apple. I was trained by people who repaired Mac SE's for Gods sake. I'd like to think that we have more experience and Genius in our pinkies than those at the Genius bars.

Word. Granted, I know several people who are geniuses, but they cut their teeth in indy shops before taking up the mantle. My boy Bryan at Apple Soho counts as leet any day of the week. The unfortunate reality is that there's a pretty high turnover for the geniuses. Similarly, some of them are just "joing a job" as opposed to those of us that eat and sleep this stuff. Hell, once Apple opens the Bethesda Row mini store, there will be 4 (count em, four!) Apple retail stores within 30 minutes of my shop. The Irony is that customers regularly come into my shop and say, "I went to the Apple store at (insert tysons, clarendon, or montgomery) and they said they couldnt fix it and that I should come to you." Granted, the retail stores pull some stocked product sales from us, but they send plenty of service to us when they cant facilitate something. Course, why they send me iPod repairs I dont know. They know as well as I do that all ipod warranty work MUST be sent to apple...

So, yeah. Never take a seasoned tech for granted :lol: Those of us who stick with it take pride in the fact that we're leet and poor.

Hell, I remember being a tech. You got the poor part right. Hell, people would bring their stuff in to diagnose first, pay us for diagnosis, then send it to Apple if it was cover under AppleCare (and was a PowerBook/iBook). They would pay for the fact that we would tell them exactly what was wrong, so it would come back fixed. And I don't think many places will service LaserWriters anymore. I've got a few fuser burns to prove my experience (with training a bad tech). I'm glad that there is a Genius that actually came to the store with experience though...I've wondered about that before.

Yeah, I've torn and burnt some flesh on those old laser printers too. Luckily, they're all vintage now and we cant get parts for them.

As to being poor, its hard to keep a small shop going. You put everything you make, back into the shop. But, there's more important things than being rich (cant believe I just said that). I take pride in my skills and my certs, not to mention being able to fix almost anything. I may not be rich, but I come to work in casual clothes, I get to do what I love, and the people I work with respect me, which breeds loyalty. A job isnt work if its something you love

Yeah, we get a sucker now and then that tries to use us for diagnosis crap. But, as long as I get my flat rate diagnostic fee, they can do what they want with it. As far as warranty goes, we just fix it. Luckily, our customers appreciate our attention to detail and the fact that on the ocassion a machine comes back from apple and is still broken, we'll go to bat for the customer and get it fixed. At this point, I think Service Provider Support is afraid of me.

I'm glad there is another tech out there that does exactly what I used to do. I left on my own volition BTW. Just the customers became too dependant, and I got sick of them, even the repeat business. Just seeing the same people over and over again making the same mistakes, also making more money than you could ever...just something snapped and had to go. New business tended to go to younger people who knew how to call Apple and were smart enough to buy AppleCare. Stress hit, and the business was a health hazard. We did PC work too, but Apple was where the love is.

I loved doing what I did, it was just the people after a while. They didn't understand anything, they would buy from Apple after you have a sale in the bag, and then bring it in wanting help. We would give them free service if they bought the machine and it was reasonable, but they would end up paying more for two hours of work than the profit we would have on the machine if they bought it from us. It's not that taking the hit from the pocket book was it, it was that they would blatently dissrespect you. Well, it felt like it.

Then there were the legacy customers. The ones that kept on coming back with their 6360's and a 2500 that stopped working. After a while, the parts just don't show up as often. They would whine and kick and scream about it, and wouldn't take your advice on putting a USB card in and getting 9.1 installed and a cheap $50 printer, after they put in about $100 in a year to keep their old printer. They loved their old stuff, but it was costing more than the equipment. These people would never upgrade and just didn't get the fact that a 8 year old computer maybe too old. Then they bring it in because it's jammed, a common pencil jam, and cry about it and try to blame it on you. I would take the pencil out and hand it back, and kick em out.

Then there were the stoners...they were cool. They would show up with $100 bills in their hands and buy stuff at random. Wait, they were the gangsters, no joke. They threw down so much money that I didn't care. They would sit in front of the store, smoke for an hour, come in all blazed, and buy 3 machines. I wish all the customers were like that.

I would like to see a black emac. I bet that would make it look a lot cooler.

one idea I have had for a new and cheap mac is to get an emac. I don't like the crt on it as its not near as crisp as my viewsonic 19" pro series. what I plan to do is get one and only use the built in screen to boot and install the dual monitor hack for ibook, imac, emac. put emac on the floor and face it screen toward wall with a plain black dtp so as to not get light from it. set viewsonic as main screen and put emac screen below it in display settings so that I don't lose windows to the right or left.. connect both the emac and my powermac via kvm to my viewsonice + kb/mouse.

my powermac has a dvd burner so I get get the entry level once they are reved again in early 2005. supposed to be a 1.6 G5 or dual core G4 1.5. so for 1000 canadian I can get a super beast compared to the one I already have that runs fine. I get all the power without the emac screen. I will keep the face far enough away from the wall so the combo drive can open in the rare event I will need to use it.

I plan on modding the whole back top and side part that slides off black and leaving the face white (even though you won't see much as it will face the wall. the black and white emac would look nice down next to the black & white powermac.

I have put much thought into this and its the most economical way for me to get a signifigant power increase with new hardware. it would be 3-4 times faster than my current system. plus I will only have to pay 1000-1100 canadian in total and be left with 2 great systems.

I think its a great I dea to scream on a budget. I don't game so an emac will be great for me. you can also squeeze 2GB ram into them now

Xplain's use of MacNews, AppleCentral and AppleExpo are not affiliated with Apple, Inc. MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. AppleCentral, MacNews, Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corp. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corp. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.